Rakudo * aka Rakudo Star aka Rakudo Whatever is pivotal release of Rakudo, that is planned for Q2 2010. Its primary purpose is to be a robust demonstration of how much Perl 6 can be used today. It is hoped that a lot of feedback will come from that, which will improve the implementation and the language. In addition, it is hoped it will attract new developers.

The star is a hint toward the Perl 6 operator called whatever (see WITCH star), meaning this release is not optimized for completness, but for stability. To almost quote Patrick Michaud, who came up with this idea at YAPC::EU in Lissabon: "whatever will be there in spring 2010, will be released".

While the original release plan was for late April 2010, a family crisis for Patrick Michaud has understandably taken up much of his attention. The release date has changed slightly from a solid April 2010 until sometime in the second quarter of 2010.

"Rakudo Star" was released on 29 July 2010. See some of the Press it got: Rakudo Star Press